Prizes: Web Articles
Masten Building On X-Prize | AVIATION WEEK
"Masten Space Systems, fresh from a million-dollar win in the NASA-sponsored Lunar Lander X-Prize Challenge, hopes to use its vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket technology to launch a commercial enterprise by the middle of next year.
Dave Masten, founder and CEO of the five-year-old Mojave, Calif., company, said Nov. 6 the company will use the $1.15 million it won by taking first place in the Level 2 lander competition and second place in Level 1 to upgrade its Xoie (pronounced "Zoey") vehicle for higher and faster flight (Aerospace DAILY, Nov. 4)." Masten intends to fly payloads to the edge of space and not humans.
Lunar Lander Competition Awards $2 Million in Prizes | On Orbit
"The race for the $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X PRIZE Challenge (NGLLXPC) incentivized prize purse, funded by NASA and presented by the X PRIZE Foundation, has come to an exciting finish. Masten Space Systems, led by David Masten, will be awarded the top $1 million prize on Nov. 5 in Washington D.C. at the Rayburn House Office Building. This is the largest incentivized prize awarded by the X PRIZE Foundation since the 2004 Ansari X PRIZE competition." Three cheers for those great prizes and may they continue to leverage R&D progress in entrepreneurial space commerce.
Horse Races with Rocket Engines | Huffington Post
"Everything is better with a little competition: sports, free markets, and now, rocketry. No, we're not talking about a new space race between China and the USA. Instead, we're talking about a new era wherein entrepreneurs try their hands at building rockets large and small, pitting their best ideas against each other in an effort to win contracts from NASA as well potentially lucrative tourist and scientific customers. We're clearly coming into an era where commercial competition will have a major impact on the aerospace community -- and on the financial community as well. " [via SpotBeam by California Space Authority]
Space Solar Power Via Prizes
"Long term, Space Solar Power (SSP) could supply massive amounts of electrical power to Earth with no greenhouse gas emissions and no dependence on foreign energy sources. The basic idea: gather solar energy in space and transmit it to Earth. However, SSP will be very hard to develop. The engineering problems are staggering and the economic problems perhaps even more difficult. While there is no market risk (the total energy market is measured in trillions of dollars), to be successful SSP must deliver energy at a price comparable to the alternatives.
Fortunately, there is a way that might work: prizes. The prize system I describe will deliver at least one working powersat for each billion dollars spent. Should no one build a working powersat, then the money won't be spent." Check out his argument.
What Matters: Audio interview with Peter Diamandis | McKinsey
"In this week’s "What Matters" podcast, we hear from Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation—a nonprofit group focused on driving innovation through large, incentive competitions. In 2004, the foundation awarded the Ansari X PRIZE, a $10 million award for the first private group to build and launch a reusable, manned spacecraft. Diamandis recently spoke with Paul Jansen, a principal in McKinsey’s San Francisco office, about how prizes can spur innovation, create new markets, and address some of the world’s thorniest socioeconomic problems." This link provides an audio and a written record of the interview with Diamandis. Many of the XPrize Foundations prizes have been designed to stimulate private space commerce.
Astrobotic creates robot to win NASA Moon excavation competition | Astrobotic Technology, Inc
Astrobotic Technology Inc. announced today that it has begun testing a robot designed to win a NASA competition for excavating simulated Moon dirt. The NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge, set for Oct. 17-18 at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, will award $500,000 for the robot that can dig and dump the most simulated lunar dirt during a 30-minute workout. (“Regolith” is the technical term for the soil covering a planet, moon or asteroid.) Future use of lunar regolith for processing into habitats and other useful applications on the Moon is anticipated if robots can do most of the work.
Mars Rover Update | NASA
"In January 2004, NASA landed two identical robotic rovers named Spirit and Opportunity on the surface of Mars. The twins were primed for a brief 3-month mission to tell us a story of water and possibly life itself in the planet's past. More than five years later, the dynamic duo are still roving the Red Planet, engaged in a saga of overachievement that has transformed Mars exploration." The amazing durability, reliability of and lessons learned from these rovers will surely impact current commercial strategies to develop similar more advanced systems for lunar applications, including competition for lunar-based prizes.
About the Regolith Excavation Challenge | 2008 Results
An update is provided on the 2008 Lunar Regolith Challenge (worth $750K) that was conducted in August. It is a design and performance competition to move a specified amount of simulated lunar material in a specified time to further future lunar resource utilization. There was no winner this year and plans are still evolving for the 2009 Challenge. This challenge, funded by the NASA Centennial Challenges Program is coordinated by CSEWI. The event is co-hosted by the California Space Authority, California Polytechnic State Univ. and the San Luis Obispo College of Engineering. Also three sponsors are listed.
Private Race to the Moon (and Money) takes Off
Space.Com, February 2008. The Google Lunar X Prize competition was announced in September 2007 and is also profiled here. The Lunar X Prize organization announces the 10 teams already onboard in February 2008 to compete for this $30M commercial prize.